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Monday, 23 November 2009

And then the lights, went out

After a week of abstemious eating and drinking, I was looking forward to preparing Mr Grigg's supper. As I absent-mindedly chopped the carrots, thoughts wandering to faraway places, the lights went out.

'Bugger,' I said aloud, as Mr Grigg was down in the garage foraging for logs.

I groped around for the wind-up torch Mr Grigg had brought back from the conference and then checked the trip switches. All were fine. I opened the front door and the village square was as black as a bag. Bliss. No horrible street lights. Across the road, Mrs Bancroft's house was dark and I could see candles being lit in the pub some 25 yards away.

The phone rang. It was Nobby Odd-Job, ringing from the power-cut free zone at the top of the village.

'I'm a bit worried about Mrs Bancroft,' he said. 'She rang me and left a message to say she was sitting in the dark and wondered if I was too. I went down but there was no-one there so I went to the pub. I've just tried to ring her back and there's no reply.'

So I checked on Mrs Bancroft, and then cooed through Night Nurse's letterbox next door. They might have been holed up together.

When I came back, I said to Mr Grigg, who was by now sitting next to a roaring fire: 'I can't make them hear across the road. I hope they're all right.'

'All right? They're watching a film in the village hall.'

It transpired that the electricity at the top end of the village was working perfectly, as is usually the case when we have a power-cut. Which was what Mrs Bancroft wanted to know from Nobby before she ventured out to the hall. He'd taken it as a cry for help, she'd meant it as a rain-check.

I lit the candles on the table, cooked the supper in the Aga and, just as things were getting all romantic, the lights came on. Bugger.

8 comments:

We've had a few blackouts here this week - thought it was the weather and then discovered a mouse has been "checking" the electrics in our barn and it is tripping the house! I love it when we rely on the candles/paraffin lamps and the fires........ but then I can't get on PC so am always glad when it comes back on!

Oh Dave, you're back! Thought you'd given up the ghost. I even blogged about it. How sad is that.Woozle - welcome to my world, and thanks for follow. We had a rat gnaw through our washing machine cable. Wasn't happy with the cleaning power of Bold, I think.WB - We need those moments of pace don't we?

All looks lovely and cosy, clever pic with the lights and another wonderful shot at the top !! Trying to work out who the 'upmarket' lady is in the next village who thinks she's superior because she married into money.

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Stories from Corfu and Dorset

'Other countries may offer you discoveries in manners or lore or landscape; Greece offers you something harder - the discovery of yourself.'

So said Lawrence Durrell in the book, Prospero's Cell. In October 2012, I exchanged my life in the Dorset village of Lush Places, in the heart of England's rural underbelly, for twelve months in a village in north Corfu which I call Agios Magikades.

But a year was not enough. And now, in fits and starts, I'm back, with a foot in both countries.

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